Production began soon afterwards, on Murdock's indestructible city. It was to hold a maximum of ten million people, one hundred tiers of humanity in all the comfort and safety the mind of man could devise. And again, a snag delayed the plan of Lester Murdock. It proved, however, to be a minor one: With each Level of the city to be constructed to a minimum height of fifty feet (any lower would impair the efficiency of the air-conditioning), the total height would be nearly one mile. At such ghastly distances above the earth, the workmen would need specially heated clothing, oxygen equipment, superior safety-belts for themselves and their gear, miles of roads and parking facilities to make their getting to and from the job possible in a minimum of wasted time--A hundred troublesome details, all of which would serve to impede progress tremendously. * * * * * Murdock, after much thought, was equal to the problem. The city, he stated, would be built in ten parts, no one part, therefore, being more than five hundred feet high. Then, when all sections were completed, they would be _flown_ to a common site, stacked like flapjacks, and the necessary inter-sectional connections made for the water and electrical conduits, elevators, and the like. The light weight of each section made such a plan almost feasible, except that it would necessitate the loss of nearly one complete level to house the vast rockets which would do the moving. Murdock and his staff conferred, and then found that, with a slight change in the blueprints, the intended million-per-section of people could still be housed, central rocket-section or not, by the addition of a very few extra feet of radius to the ten-level sections. His plan was endorsed by the engineers when it was found that such an extension brought the overall dimension of the section into accordance with the necessary lift-surface areas for the proposed flying city. * * * * * That the city would take its well-earned place among the wonders of the world, Murdock had no doubt; that he would still be in office at the time of its completion was extremely unlikely, since, even at maximum speeds of construction, it would be impossible to do it in less than twenty-five years. There was nothing to do but put it to a vote of all the people. Murdock worded his proposition, however, with the canny instinct for outguessing human nature which had brought him to his present estate: While supposedly stressing the fact that a continuing Presidential program even after the man was out of office was unprecedented, he actually made it known by his phrasing of the proposition that such an extension would divide the contingent tax-bite per citizen into twenty-five painless morsels, rather than the four rather large gulps they would have had to swallow during his tenure.